The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire : Congressional Black Caucus declines follow-up meeting with Trump

    By: Jacqueline Alemany, CBS News

    Black Cong. Caucus.jpgMeeting of President Donald Trump with members of the Black Congressional Caucus
    WASHINGTON — The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has rejected the invitation to meet with President Trump for a follow up meeting at the White House, according to a letter released by the chair of the committee, Cedric Richmond, on Wednesday.
    Citing actions by the Trump administration “that will affirmatively hurt black communities,” Richmond wrote that concerns discussed during a preliminary meeting with Mr. Trump on March 22 “fell on deaf ears.”
    · Trump asks black reporter to “set up the meeting” with Congressional Black Caucus
    “Given the lack of response to any of the many concerns we have raised with you and your administration, we decline your invitation for all 49 members of the Congressional Black Caucus to meet with you,” Richmond said.
    “I fail to see how a social gathering would benefit the policies we advocate for,” Richmond added.
    Mr. Trump’s extended an invitation to the 49 members of the CBC to return to the White House for a follow up meeting on June 9th, first reported by CBS News last week.
    Manigault, whose official title is Assistant to the President and Director of Communications of the Office of Public Liaison, was ridiculed on Twitter for signing the letter as “The Honorable Omarosa Manigault.”
    In response to one Twitter user who asked if she had received a promotion, Manigault tweeted out a screenshot of a guide for “departmental correspondence” that recommends addressing an assistant to the president as “Honorable” in a letter.
    However, an article by The Washington Post points to the Emily Post Institute of Etiquette which states that “the honorific is reserved for “the President, the Vice President, United States senators and congressmen, Cabinet members, all federal judges, ministers plenipotentiary, ambassadors, and governors,” who get to use the title for life.”
    The CBC has been skeptical of Manigault’s role as an advocate for the black community in the Trump White House and her self-publicized degree of influence. A CBC source told CBS News that the group was not interested in what they predicted would be another “photo-op.”
    Richmond specifically lists several efforts by the administration that would “devastate” the African American community, including
    Mr. Trump’s 2018 fiscal budget, Attorney General Jeff Sessions plan to “accelerate the failed war on drugs,” cuts to funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the “effort to dismantle our nation’s health care system.”
    Sources say that the CBC is not completely united in the decision to reject Mr. Trump’s invitation for a meeting.
    In March, the Vice Chair of the CBC Gwen Moore told CBS News that refusing to engage with the President was a “luxury” that she did not have.
    “We don’t have the luxury of saying we won’t meet with the president of the U.S.,” she said at the time. “We have 1,399 more days left in his presidency and I don’t think that our communities would be served well by our not engaging.”

  • Newswire : ‘Huge Victory’: Progressives Vow to Keep Fighting GOP Health Bill After Vote Delay

    By: Adam Gabbatt ,The Guardian
    health care demonstration
    Health care protest

    Progressive activists hailed a “huge victory” and a “giant step toward single-payer healthcare” on Tuesday, after Senate Republicans were forced to postpone a vote on their proposed healthcare bill.

    Many warned, however, that the battle was not over, promising continued attempts to pressure Republican senators over the Fourth of July recess and beyond.
    Thousands of activists from groups including Our Revolution, Indivisible and Planned Parenthood had spent the past week mounting frantic efforts to derail the legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said would leave 22 million more people without health coverage over the next 10 years.

    On Tuesday, after a number of GOP senators said they would not vote for the bill, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told his caucus he would delay the vote on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until after the coming July 4 recess. There were five Republican Senators – Dean Heller, Susan Collins, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul.
    “It’s beyond a victory,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which encouraged members to pressure Republican senators to vote against the bill. “What people are saying is, ‘We want a society, we don’t want a market to protect our health.’”
    The bill would have been a victory for insurance companies, DeMoro said, and senators’ apparent distaste for the legislation was a blow for both those companies and Republicans.
    “I think this is a giant step toward single-payer healthcare – the fact that they defeated the Republicans – because ultimately, embedded in that is a defeat for free-market fundamentalism.” What people are saying is, ‘We want a society, we don’t want a market to protect our health.”
    Indivisible, a progressive organization established after the 2016 election to oppose Donald Trump and Republican policies, mobilized activists from more than 3,000 chapters across the country to protest the bill. “It is a huge, huge victory,” said Ezra Levin, Indivisible’s executive director. “But it’s not a final victory.”

    Levin said Indivisible’s ultimate goal was to defeat the bill outright, but the short-term plan had been to delay a vote until after the Senate recess.
    House Republicans who voted for the first and second iterations of their own healthcare bill, which passed in May, faced angry receptions at town hall events during the April and May recesses.
    “McConnell was trying to rush it through this week because he knew Fourth of July recess was coming up,” Levin said. “He knew senators would be heading back to their states and hearing from their constituents, so he knew it was going to get harder if the vote was delayed.”
    It was “not a foregone conclusion” that the bill would be defeated, Levin said. “The challenge now is going to keep the pressure up. We cannot forget what happened on the House side. This is a huge blow against Trumpcare but in order to actually defeat this, pressure will have to continue.”
    Winnie Wong, co-founder of People for Bernie, an independent activist group with more than a million supporters, echoed Levin’s concern but praised collaboration between dozens of leftwing groups in the weeks leading up to the delay of the bill.
    “It’s an effort that is being held up by almost all progressive groups,” she said, “whether they have anything to do with the Democratic party or not, I think there is a unification between all progressives right now around making sure Trumpcare does not go through the Senate.
    “All these Republican lawmakers are really feeling the heat from their constituents. They are not stupid. And in some states you see them doing the right thing.” Our Revolution, a progressive organization founded in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, said supporters had made “almost 8,000 calls” to the Senate to oppose the bill.
    “Today’s delay is a victory for the 22 million people who are at risk of losing coverage,” said Shannon Jackson, Our Revolution’s executive director. “As senators head back home for the Fourth of July holiday we will continue to demand they vote ‘no’ on this immoral and disastrous bill.”
    The Working Families Party (WFP), meanwhile, organized weekly protests outside the offices of Nevada senator Dean Heller and a sit-in in the office of Susan Collins of Maine over the past few weeks. It also held a demonstration at Reagan national airport in nearby Arlington, Virginia, on Friday which targeted senators flying home for the weekend.
    “An unprecedented resistance movement has knocked Trumpcare off course,” said WFP national director Dan Cantor. “But we will not stop organizing, protesting or speaking out until this immoral proposal is crushed, discarded and buried.”
    With the threat of a vote after recess week, however, Richards warned that it was “now more important than ever for people to make their voices heard”.
    “Republican leadership needs to hear over and over that the people of America will not stand to see healthcare stripped from millions, and they will not stand to see Planned Parenthood’s patients lose their access to healthcare,” she said.
    “Now, as senators go home for recess next week, it’s time to send the message that we need to stop this harmful bill once and for all.”

  • Newswire : Commemorating the Lovings and their courage

    By Saraya Wintersmith

    loving marker celebration
    From left, Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan, Sen. Rosalyn R. Dance and ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga help  unveil the new state marker outside the Patrick Henry Building at 11th and Broad streets. PHOTO: Richmond Free Press
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – A state historical marker in Downtown Richmond, Va. now commemorates the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, which resulted in laws banning interracial marriage being overturned in Virginia and 16 other states.
    Gov. Terry McAuliffe and his wife, First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe, were joined by Mayor Levar M. Stoney, Sen. Rosalyn R. Dance, Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan and others to unveil the marker on Monday, the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision.The new marker is located at 11th and Broad streets, outside the state-owned Patrick Henry Building, which once housed the Virginia Supreme Court.Virginia’s highest court upheld the law that triggered the arrest and conviction of Richard and Mildred Loving of Caroline County in July 1958. Richard, a White man, and Mildred, an African-American woman, married in the District of Columbia, and returned to their home in Caroline County’s Central Point.
    They were arrested and convicted of violating Virginia’s 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which banned interracial marriage. A judge suspended their yearlong jail sentence on the condition that the couple leave the state for 25 years. The Lovings appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court with the held of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1967, the nation’s highest court overturned Virginia’s law and lifted all such interracial marriage bans across the nation.
    “It’s almost hard to believe, but that’s actually what happened,” Gov. McAuliffe told the gathering of more than 100 people at the marker dedication ceremony.“
    All they wanted to do was get married. They loved each other, and all they wanted was their state to recognize them.
    ”While the Lovings are now deceased, neither of their two surviving children or other relatives attended the ceremony. Julie Langan, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, said they prefer to remain out of the public eye. Langan described the Loving v. Virginia marker as one that will fill a “glaring gap” in the nation’s oldest highway marker system.
    “Our motivation stems from the belief that in order to mature and to evolve as a society, we must analyze and often re-examine the facts in order to accurately piece together the truth of our history,” she said.Gov. McAuliffe pointed out that the Loving case is part of a “chain” linked to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of same-sex couples to marry. Same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia in October 2014.
    Gov. McAuliffe said to applause, “We would never have had marriage equality two years ago had it not been for Mildred and Richard Loving.”

  • Newswire : Nooses on the National Mall stoke memories of “America’s Dark History”

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

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    U.S. Park Police confirmed that another noose was found on the National Mall, last week, according to ABC News. Late last month, a portion of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., was closed for nearly three hours after a noose was found in a gallery, officials said.
    The museum, on the National Mall near the White House, reopened fully later that day, after police deemed the area “safe and secure,” according to an internal memo provided to ABC News by the Smithsonian. In an article posted to the Smithsonian’s, museum officials said that the noose is a reminder of “America’s dark history with lynching” and referred to similar incidents of noose sightings around the country including at a school in Missouri, a construction site in Maryland, on the campus of Duke University, at a fraternity house on University of Maryland’s campus, at a middle school in Maryland and at a high school in Lakewood, California.
    Tourists found the noose in the museum’s exhibit on segregation.
    The incident at NMAAHC occurred after a noose was found on May 26 hanging from a tree outside the Hirshhorn Museum, which is located close to the Black History museum.
    In an email to museum staffers, Lonnie Bunch, the director of NMAAHC, said that the incident is a painful reminder of the challenges that African Americans continue to face.
    “The noose has long represented a deplorable act of cowardice and depravity—a symbol of extreme violence for African-Americans,” said Bunch.
    On May 30, at Wakefield High School in Raleigh, N.C. a Black doll with a noose around its neck was suspended outside of a window.
    “Let me be clear: This was an offensive act that has no place in our school. The imagery is deeply offensive and everyone in our school community should be appalled,” said Principal Malik Bazzell, as reported by a Raleigh TV station.
    During a rally at the a park named after Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee Charlottesville, Va., on May 13, participants with torches chanted “Russia is our friend” and “you shall not erase us.”
    According to ThinkProgress.org, the rally was in response to “the state’s decision to sell off a statue of treasonous general Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia against the United States during the Civil War.” ThinkProgress.org also reported that, “Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer condemned the rally and its attendees.”
    On May 26, in Portland, Oregon, a man named Jeremy Christian hurled anti-Muslim vitriol on a subway train at two young women, then murdered two men who intervened, Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Ricky Best, 53, and injured a third, Micah Fletcher.
    On May 20, Richard Collins, 23 year-old second lieutenant in the Army, was stabbed to death by University of Maryland student Sean Urbanski, 22, as Collins waited with friends for a ride. Lt. Collins was about to graduate from Bowie State University on May 23. The FBI is investigating the murder as a possible hate crime and it has already been reported that Urbanski was a member of an “alt-right” group on Facebook.
    On the eve of the NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James’ Los Angeles home was vandalized; the “N-word” was written with spray paint on his house.
    “Just shows that racism will always be a part of the world, part of America. Hate in America, especially for African-Americans, is living every day. It is hidden most days. It is alive every single day,” James told reporters. “No matter how much money you have, how famous you are, how much people admire you, being Black in America is tough.”

  • Newswire : Five officials indicted on manslaughter charges over Flint water crisis

    By: Real Independent News and Film

    Flint Water Tower
    Flint Water Tower

    Michigan’s attorney general has filed new, more serious charges of involuntary manslaughter against five officials in the Flint Water Crisis investigation, among them the head of Michigan’s health department.
    Heath chief Nick Lyon was charged with two felonies, involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office, for failing to alert the public about an outbreak in Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area, according to AP.
    Some experts linked the outbreak to poor water quality during the height of water crisis in 2014-15. Nearly 100 people were affected during the Legionnaires outbreak, 12 of whom died.
    “Mr. Lyon failed in his responsibility to protect the health and safety of the citizens of Flint,” Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette told reporters on Wednesday about charges that are moving closer than ever to Governor Rick Snyder.
    Lyon failed to inform the public of this health threat. A threat that cost of the life of Robert Skidmore.” Skidmore was a great-grandfather with three sons, four grandchildren and four great grandchildren. He died from Legionnaires’ disease in December 2015.
    Lyon’s was also charged for allegedly obstructing university researchers who are studying if the surge in cases was linked to the Flint River.
    Lyon admitted he was aware of the Legionnaires’ outbreak for months but wanted to wait until investigators in the state Health and Human Services Department had finished their own probe.
    Lyon, if convicted, could face up to 15 years in prison for the manslaughter and up to 5 years for the misconduct charge.
    Four others were charged with involuntary manslaughter: former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Early; former City of Flint Water Department Manager Howard Croft; Michigan Department of Environment Quality’s Drinking Water Chief Laine Shekter-Smith; and Water Supervisor Steven Busch – all for failure to act in the Flint water crisis.
    Michigan’s medical executive chief, Eden Wells, was charged with a felony and misdemeanor for obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer and failing to protect the health and safety of the citizens of Flint.
    “During the course of the investigation, Ms Wells withheld funding for programs designed to help victims of the crisis and then lied to an investigator about a material fact,” Schuette said.
    Children have been exposed to lead. People in Flint have died as a result of decisions made by the individuals we are charging today.— A.G. Bill Schuette (@SchuetteOnDuty) June 14, 2017
    Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, issued a statement after the felony charges were announced and said he is standing behind the two top health department officials.
    “Director Lyon and Dr. Wells have been and continue to be instrumental in Flint’s recovery,” Snyder said in a news release. “They have my full faith and confidence, and will remain on duty at DHHS,” according to Detroit Free Press. Snyder said Lyon “has been a strong leader … and remains completely committed to Flint’s recovery.”
    The problems began when the Flint’s water supply was switched to the Flint River in April 2014, while under state emergency management, but it was not treated to reduce corrosion. Lead from old plumbing leached into the water system, causing a massive lead contamination crisis.
    Schuette said that while no charges are planned against Governor Rick Snyder, his investigation would continue. “We have attempted to interview the governor [but] we were not successful,” Shuette said, according to Detroit Free Press.
    The Michigan attorney general said his office had also released an interim report on the investigation. His team had interviewed 250 people, examined over 100 emails and issued 51 criminal charges and charged 15 current or former government officials in the probe that began in 2016.

  • U. N. urges donors to reconsider deep cuts to education for Africa

    Outdoor classroom in Malawi

    Outdoor classroom in Malawi

    June 12, 2017 (GIN) – Sharp cuts in education aid to sub-Saharan African countries in the last six years have unraveled progress made in basic education, adult education and literacy programs. That was one of the findings of a new report by Global Education Monitoring and presented to UNESCO, the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural organization.

    Specifically, donor aid to basic education at $5.2 billion is six per cent lower than the 2010 allocation while secondary education received $2.2 billion, or 19 per cent of total aid to the sector, the report researchers found.

    “The U.S. and the United Kingdom remain the two largest donors to basic education, but they reduced their allocations by 11 and nine per cent respectively between 2014 and 2015,” observed UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova. “Norway and Germany on the other hand, increased their allocations to basic education by 50 and 34 per cent respectively,” she said.

    In Ghana, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recently offered a pep talk at the opening session of the 14th General Conference of the Association of African Universities, hinting at the donor problem.

    “African governments should never have to rely on the World Bank and other institutions to decide on the choices they have to make concerning policies and the funding of education on the continent.

    “We should not get into arguments with foreign agencies about our priorities. We must set our own priorities and we must accept that we must provide the funds to translate our plans into reality,” he said.

    The President’s stance speaks to several decades of decline in African universities following the World Bank’s directive on education reforms in the 1960s and 1970s when it advised African governments to redirect support away from tertiary education towards primary and secondary education.

    At that time, the bank argued that such a policy was justified by the desperate need for basic education across Africa, but the directive contributed to the deterioration in African universities. It resulted in run down, under-resourced universities which now also face a huge demand for places — as a result of successfully increasing the provision of secondary education.

  • What Black parents must do this summer

    By:  Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu

    dr.kunjufu.jpg

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – There is a three year gap between Black and White students. Many people love to believe it’s due to income fatherlessness, educational attainment of the parent and lack of parental involvement. I believe a major reason for the gap is we continue to close schools for the summer as if we are an agrarian economy.
    Very few Black youth will be farming this summer. If you multiply three months by 12 years you will see the three year gap. There is nothing wrong with Black youth if their schools remained open during the summer and/or their parents kept them academically engaged.
    Middle-income parents who value education enroll their children in some type of academic experience during the summer. They also visit libraries, museums, zoos and colleges. Other parents allow their children to sleep longer, play more video games, watch more television and play basketball until they can’t see the hoop. These students will have to review the same work they had mastered in May in September.
    Black parents cannot allow their child to lose 3 months every year. Black parents cannot say they cannot afford the library. It’s free! Most museums have discounted days. A male friend of mine shared his experience with me when he took his family to the museum. He wondered why so many people were staring at him. His wife and children had to tell him he was the only Black man in the building! I am appealing to every father to take his children this summer to the library, museum, and the zoo. I am appealing to every mother if he won’t, you will.
    We need every parent to make sure their child reads at least one book per week and to write a book report. I am reminded of the formula Sonya Carson used to develop Ben Carson to become the best pediatric neurosurgeon. This low-income single parent, with a third grade education, had enough sense to tell her sons to turn off the television, read a book and write a report that her sister would grade!
    I have a theory that I can go into your house and within five minutes tell you the type of student who lives there and predict their future. I believe that engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants etc. need different items in their house than ballplayers, rappers, and criminals. I am very concerned when I visit a house that has more cds and downloads than books. My company African American Images has designed a special collection of books for boys. Research shows one of the major reasons boys dislike reading is because of the content. The set is titled Best Books for Boys. We also have one for girls, parents and teachers.
    Enjoy your summer. Let’s close the gap. I look forward to your child’s teacher asking your child what did you do for the summer? And your child answering we went to the library, museum, zoo, colleges and other great educational places. Excerpt from There is Nothing Wrong with Black Students.

  • Some say Russia ‘collusion’ investigation distracting from Black issues

     

    By Barrington M. Salmon

    congresswomansheilajacksonlee-comey.jpg
    Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) was among several members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the hearing room as Comey testified.
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – During former FBI Director Jim Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, the irony of Black people cheering for Comey didn’t escape African-Americans who watched the on-going saga unfold in public view last week.
    In more than three hours of testimony, Comey said under oath that the president repeatedly pressed him for a pledge of loyalty and asked him to drop the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. And after Comey failed to fulfill the president’s wishes, Trump fired him.
    In casual conversations, political discussions and debates in Black communities across the country, the question has centered on how invested African-Americans should be in the hearings and their outcome given the FBI’s history of unfairness to Black leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Moreover, with Black progress at stake,some wonder whether the focus on the Trump-Comey controversy is too much of a destraction.
    Mimi Machado-Luces, a documentary filmmaker, photographer and mother of two, said she watched the hearing and believes Trump is a liar who lacks the skills or temperament to be president. This is all the more reason that Black people must escalate thier attention to Black progress.
    People of African descent in America, she said, were lulled to sleep by eight years of a Barack Obama presidency and now most still can’t rouse themselves to fully confront the dangers that the Trump administration has spawned.
    “I think that we’ve fallen back onto this lull of ‘Oh…good times are over.’ We’ve fallen back into this reactionary mode,” she said. “Black Lives Matter and other groups like that are grand but I don’t see anyone coming out aggressively about things we need to be pursuing in our agenda, talking about the effects of things Trump is coming in to dismantle.”
    Machado-Luces, an artist-in-residence teaching Digital Media at several DC and Maryland schools, said she wonders if and when Black people will come together and coalesce around a meaningful, substantive agenda.
    “I don’t know if that will happen, probably not in my lifetime,” she said. “All I know is that there’s so much work to do. I don’t want to say we as a people lack vision. We’re psychologically lulled into accepting the oppression. I see some people trying to change things but part of the oppression is written into law. People get off when they shouldn’t.”
    The intrigue and importance of the topic of possible collusion with a foreign country by a U. S presidential administration has not escaped coverage by the Black press, which has historically covered the antagonist relationship between the Black community and the FBI as well as other law enforcement agencies. DC-based independent journalist and political analyst Lauren Victoria Burke said she was among those glued to coverage, mainly because of the gravity of the events.
    Burke said unlike the Iran-Contra scandal, for example, the ethical lapses and conflicts of interests swirling around this White House is a “much more serious matter because of the possibility of the president or his people being involved in treasonous activity.”
    She said, “It’s a spy-level novel situation…No. I’ve never seen anything like this. The idea that somehow this is normal – none of this is normal.”
    Burke, who covers Capital Hill daily, says Black Democratic lawmakers like Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Al Green (D-Texas) have been leading the charge in criticizing Trump, calling for a special prosecutor and seeking impeachment.
    “They’ve been a little bit more out in front than most people. Green and Waters have called for impeachment. They’re the only members to call for impeachment,” said Burke. “Waters came out in front very early. She talked in a way that people were saying to take it back. But it’s almost mainstream now.”
    Sam Collins, a millennial grassroots journalist and activist, said he watched sections of the Comey hearing with a jaundiced eye. He’s tired, he said, of the mainstream treating critical, potentially life-and-death issues and the dysfunction and chaos emanating from the White House as a pay-per-view event. Even though he has a good handle on the inner-workings of government and its relationship with the people it purports to serve, Collins said he’s still not sure whether the entire Russia debacle is just a diversionary tactic.
    “Our leaders are following Russia while districts are going through issues, such as access to quality healthcare, unemployment and other problems that were here long before Russia or Trump,” said Collins, who is a teacher with District of Columbia Public Schools. “It’s proxy war. They’re putting up this proxy war to distract us.”
    As he’s watched the Trump White House try unsuccessfully to fend off a rising chorus of accusations of collusion with Russia and a variety of other potential misdeeds, Collins believes Black leaders have become distracted as African-Americans and people of color face more overt racism, unprovoked attacks, hostility from the Trump administration, and the reversal of hard-earned gains by regressive forces.
    “We need to organize among ourselves,” he concluded. “The NAACP is going through an identity crisis and may be about to fall under. I wouldn’t be mad,” Collins said with a chuckle. “There are no radical voices…All this political stardom and we have no juice to move anything.”

  • Stacey Abrams runs to be Georgia’s first Black governor

    BY: Greg Bluestein, Atlanta Journal Constitution

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    Stacey Abrams

    Democrat Stacey Abrams entered the campaign for Georgia governor on Saturday with a pledge to expand pre-kindergarten programs and make technical college education free, promising she’d bring a “bold and ambitious approach” to state government that will invigorate the economy.
    Abrams, who heads her party’s caucus in the Georgia House, said that as governor she’ll embrace the same knack for compromise with Republicans who have controlled the statehouse for more than a decade when she sees common ground. But she said she would stick to a fiercely progressive agenda on some of the biggest partisan divides, including efforts to restrict abortion or pass “religious liberty” legislation she views as discriminatory.
    To emphasize that point, her announcement coincided with formal endorsements from Emily’s List, the influential left-leaning group, and Democracy for America, a progressive PAC with about 1 million supporters across the nation.
    “Georgia is ready for a Democratic governor. My success demonstrates that difference doesn’t have to be a barrier,” Abrams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Southern politicians have to reject a notion that difference is a barrier and that we can’t all be committed to progress and equality.”
    Abrams faces a fellow state legislator, Stacey Evans, in the Democratic primary of the wide-open race to succeed Gov. Nathan Deal. Four Republicans are already running: Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Secretary of State Brian Kemp and state Sens. Hunter Hill and Michael Williams.
    Democrats face long odds flipping the Georgia governor’s mansion, which has been in Republican hands since Sonny Perdue’s 2002 upset victory. But partisans hope to capitalize on the state’s changing demographics and the same angst over President Donald Trump that is propelling Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District race.
    Abrams, 43, has made her pursuit of Georgia’s highest office no mystery, and she filed paperwork to run for the seat earlier this month. She is set to launch her campaign at a rally in Albany, a community that she said reminds her of her Mississippi upbringing.
    The kickoff in Albany, a 150-mile drive outside of vote-rich Atlanta, was meant to symbolize not only her connection with rural Georgians but also the dichotomy in her own family.
    Her sister Leslie Abrams, the first Black female federal judge in Georgia, lives and works in Albany. Her brother Walter, whom she has spoken little of publicly, is serving a prison sentence stemming from a drug addiction and a long-undiagnosed mental illness.
    “I want a state that lifts up Walter and lifts up Leslie – and treats both as our children and our possibilities,” she said. “And I want to believe that when Walter finally returns, he’ll have the same opportunities for success that anyone has.”
    Her background will play a prominent role in her campaign. Her parents struggled with poverty while raising Abrams and her five siblings in Gulfport, Miss. The family later moved to Atlanta, and Abrams graduated from Spelman College and Yale Law School.
    She won an Atlanta-based seat in the Georgia House in 2006 and built a national profile as a leading voice for the party in the South. She has already received a flood of attention for her run: She would be the first black governor in Georgia – and the first black female governor in the nation.
    Her opponents have long criticized her style and tone, as well as her willingness to negotiate with Republicans on controversial measures. One of her testiest decisions was support of a 2011 law engineered by Deal that slashed funding for the state’s HOPE scholarship program.
    Evans, her Democratic opponent, called that day the darkest of her legislative career. Abrams said the rising costs of the lottery-funded program gave her little other choice but to seek a compromise.
    “HOPE was dying,” she said, calling Deal’s initial proposal a series of “drastic cuts” that would have gutted the pre-kindergarten program. “If we had refused to work and help that program, we would have lost a generation of children who don’t get a do-over.”
    She added: “Sometimes fighting for Georgians means working with the other side. I’m willing to risk my leadership to make certain that Georgians get what they need from their government.”
    ‘Finding innovative ways’
    Abrams said she’ll campaign on a pledge to expand the state’s universal pre-k program, which now serves 80,000 4-year-olds, to also include 3-year-olds. She would urge schools to teach computer science courses earlier and back legislation to make technical college courses tuition-free.
    “It’s about finding innovative ways to invest with what we have,” she said of how she would pay for it, adding that she’ll spend the next few months touring the state to talk with residents and community leaders to hone her policy.
    Abrams might be best known nationally for the New Georgia Project voter registration group that she founded. It aims to register hundreds of thousands of left-leaning voters within the next decade – and has become a favorite target for state Republicans.
    She also has another claim to fame: She’s a prolific author of romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery, and she wrote her first book while in her third year at Yale Law. She’s been known to insert characters from the Georgia political scene into her work.
    More recently, Abrams has taken on kinship care as a cause, often talking about the problems her parents had navigating the legal maze after they took in a granddaughter – Walter’s daughter Faith – to raise.
    The Democratic primary is shaping up to be an all-women contest that could determine the direction of the party: Should it appeal to moderates and independents who have drifted to the GOP, or should it double-down on mobilizing liberals?
    Supporters of Evans, a Smyrna attorney who announced her campaign last week, hope she can attract voters in metro Atlanta’s fast-changing suburbs that once reliably voted Democratic.
    Abrams also talks of broadening the party’s base, but one of her biggest strengths may lie in the traditional supporters of the Democratic Party: Black women make up the biggest bloc in Georgia’s Democratic electorate.
    In the interview, Abrams said the state’s changing demographics – Georgia is expected to be majority-minority by the mid 2020s – will give Democrats a tantalizing opening next year.

  • Black troops as much as twice as likely to be punished by commanders, courts

    By: Tom Vanden Brook , USA TODAY
    Black troops
    Black Troops

    WASHINGTON — Black troops are far more likely than their white comrades to face court martial or other forms of military punishment, according to a study to be released Wednesday.
    Black service members were as much as two times more likely than white troops to face discipline in an average year, according to an analysis by Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy organization for victims of sexual assault and military justice. The group combed through Pentagon data from 2006 to 2015 for its report.
    USA TODAY received an advance copy of the study.
    “Over the past decade, racial disparities have persisted in the military justice system without indications of improvement,” the report states. “These disparities are particularly striking for black service members, who face military justice or disciplinary action at much higher rates than white service members in every service branch. In fact, the size of the disparity between white and black service members’ military justices involvement has remained consistent over the years, and, in the case of the Air Force and Marine Corps has increased.”
    A spokesman for the Pentagon said officials will review the report. “It is longstanding Department of Defense policy that service members must be afforded the opportunity to serve in an environment free from unlawful racial discrimination,” said Johnny Michael, a Pentagon spokesman. “The department will review any new information concerning implementation of and compliance with this policy.”
    The military services provided differing sets of data in response to the request from Protect Our Defenders, making comparisons among the services difficult. For example, the Air Force provided proceedings from court martial and non-judicial punishment from 2006 to 2015, while the Marine Corps supplied guilty findings for court martial and non-judicial punishment for the same period.
    Marine Corps’ discipline
    The researchers found that the Marine Corps had some of the most significant issues with race, particularly in instances where the harshest penalties are possible.. In an average year, Black Marines were 2.6 times more likely than whites to receive a guilty finding at a general court martial, the military judicial proceeding for more serious offenses. The data also show that guilty findings overall plummeted over that period, peaking in 2010, a period that coincided with peak deployments to war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.
    The study also found that black airmen were 71% more likely than whites in the Air Force to face court martial or non-judicial punishment, discipline meted out for less serious offenses.
    Col. Patrick Ryder, an Air Force, spokesman, said any suggestion of unfair justice in the service is “concerning. The Air Force works hard to prevent unlawful discrimination in all of our processes, particularly military justice, and will continue to do so.”
    Findings for the other services, the Army and Navy, show disparities as well. Black soldiers were 61% more likely to face court martial than whites in the Army; and black sailors were 40% more likely than whites in the Navy to be court martialed. That percentage is 32% for Black Marines.
    “From the findings of the study, race appears like it plays a big role, which is disheartening,” Don Christensen, president of the group and a former top prosecutor for the Air Force, said in an interview. “It seems to have a sizable role in determining if somebody’s going to go to court or receive non-judicial punishment. I’m really not sure what exactly explains it, and that’s what is really troubling. The military has known about these numbers for decades and has done nothing about it.”
    Lack of minority officers
    Christensen said that the lack of diversity in the military may play a role in unequal justice for black troops. In 2016, about 78% of military officers were white, and 8% were black.
    “If you look at the leadership of military it skews very dramatically white and male and you would imagine that the closer relationships will be with white male subordinates,” Christensen said. “Hence they probably get the benefit of the doubt that the African American males don’t.”
    The study shows that the military isn’t immune from the same racial issues that affect civilian police and courts, said Michael Wishnie, clinical professor of law at Yale University. Stereotypes and implicit bias can affect who is arrested and charged and who gets a plea deal. “So it’s a lot like everything else in society, and that’s a real problem,” he said.
    The lack of similar, comparable data from the services also prevents the Pentagon from pinpointing systemic problems, and identifying best practices, Wishnie said. The Pentagon could benefit from lessons learned in civilian justice as well as from foreign militaries.
    “This report cries out for action,” he said.